Combine Obsidian Entertainment's extensive knowledge of RPG design with the personal gaming tastes of South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker and you end up with the combat mechanics of South Park: The Game. Taking cues from the Paper Mario series, the combat is a turn-based exercise that depends largely on the player's active and precise participation. Matt MacLean is the lead designer on the game and he sat down with us to talk about the tone of the overall game, the mechanics of combat, and what the South Park RPG has learned from Final Fantasy 7.

You guys forgot to mention that it will also totally suck because it's going to use the DS3 engine!

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Obsidian making a South Park game with combat inspired by Final Fantasy with the DS3 engine! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes… The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

— "I am not interested in good; I am interested in new, even if this includes the possibility of it's being evil"
(LaMonte Young, 1962)

Sort of surprised by the hatred but then again not really. I'm mostly indifferent since I don't follow South Park and really my only issue is this means Obsidian isn't working on something else I want more. But I hope they succeed as Obsidian failing doesn't mean we get more RPGs we want.